Marshall Wittmann is a Washington insider who has worked for two of the Senate's more hawkish figures:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), for whom Wittmann
currently serves as communications director, and Sen. John
McCain (R-AZ). A political pundit and analyst with past affiliations to a number of neoconservative
and rightist policy outfits, including the Hudson
Institute and the Heritage Foundation,
Wittmann has worked to turn the Democratic Party toward the right while a fellow at the Progressive
Policy Institute (PPI) and the Democratic
Leadership Council (DLC).
In the farewell entry (November 17, 2006) to his DLC-affiliated blog, "Bull Moose," Wittmann
evoked the memory of Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the fervently anti-communist senator from
Washington around whom the nascent neoconservative faction organized in the late 1970s, in commending
the work of his new boss, Senator Lieberman. He wrote: " For now, the Moose bids adieu to his
Mooseketeers. It's been a good run. The Moose has tremendously enjoyed musing, observing, and holding
forth on the issues of the day. But, for the time being, this cervine creature will not be seen in
cyberspace. The great and grand political development of the past year has been the triumph of Independent
Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman. Joe has bravely revived the great tradition of Scoop Jackson that is
so critically needed at this time of international challenge and crisis."
Lieberman said in a press release about Wittmann's appointment: "There is no better person to
take the helm during this new time in my Senate career than Marshall. Marshall has been a trusted outside
adviser to me for some time now and I'm glad he will bring his experience and wisdom to my staff. Those
qualities, along with his independence and diverse background, make him the ideal captain of my new
Senate Communications team."
During the 2006 primary campaign, in which Connecticut Democrats chose upstart candidate Ned Lamont
over Lieberman, Wittmann criticized anti-Lieberman campaigners, calling them "nutroots" and "McGovernites
with modems." He sardonically claimed on his blog that anti-war Democrats were forcing the party "back
to the glory days of the early seventies. In their reflexive opposition to everything Bush, Democrats
too often appear weak on fighting the war against jihadist terror" (see Tom Barry, "Tacking
Right?" Right Web Analysis, August 29, 2006).
Just two years earlier, however, Wittmann himself was anti-Bush, vociferously supporting the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Wittmann argued: "Another four years of a Bush presidency would have a toxic effect on American politics. If George W. Bush is reelected, unlimited corporate power, cynicism, and division will ride high in the saddle." Writing for PPI's Blueprint Magazine just ahead of the 2004 elections, Wittmann seemed to think that a Kerry administration might push forward a "neoconservative center-right ... politics of national greatness" that the Bush administration had purportedly abandoned. He wrote: "Although this new political perspective was never spelled out in specifics, its adherents (including me) envisioned an energetic federal government that would implement a foreign policy advancing American interests and human rights, along with a domestic policy that would promote national service, and an economics policy focused on benefiting the middle class" (Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004).
On the surface, Wittmann's has been a bewildering political trajectory. He has worked in the office of a Republican senator, but also at the "third way" Democratic think tank PPI. Wittmann was legislative director for the Christian Coalition and worked for the Heritage Foundation. Commenting on these seemingly contradictory jobs, the New York Times Mark Leibovich wrote about Wittmann: "In his peripatetic soul, he is a Washington Original, a man without a political country going to work for a senator without a political party ... [He] is a Trotskyite turned Zionist turned Reaganite turned bipartisan irritant turned pretty much everything in between—including chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, the only Jew who has ever held that position" (New York Times, November 22, 2006).
Wittmann told Leibovich: "I think I'm the only person who has worked for both Cesar Chavez and Linda Chavez ... I think I'm the only person who's worked for both Ralph Reed and [former aide to President Clinton] Bruce Reed."
So why did Wittmann jump the aisle? As he tells it: "The realization that the religious right had essentially become a front for the money men of the Republican Party was a primary source of my disenchantment with that movement. And without a doubt, the GOP has merely become a vehicle for unbridled corporate power. Such a party cannot provide a home for a movement that strives for national greatness" (Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004).
Though there are obvious differences, his ideological path is somewhat reminiscent of many neoconservatives who have been among the biggest boosters of the Bush administration's interventionist foreign policies in the Middle East. The attachment to rightist Christians, the effort to push Democrats to adopt hardline foreign policies, and a willingness to change parties have been hallmarks of the neocon political faction for decades, beginning in the mid-1970s, when many of the group's trailblazers (like Norman Podhoretz, Penn Kemble, and Joshua Muravchik) abandoned the Democratic Party.
However, while many of Wittmann's neoconservative brethren have remained closely identified with the Republican Party since the Reagan years, Wittmann has been decidedly agnostic when it comes to party politics. Witness his fierce loyalty to erstwhile boss Senator McCain, whom Wittmann calls the "modern champion of conservatives for national greatness." While stumping for Kerry in 2004, Wittmann highlighted efforts by Bush supporters to smear McCain during the 2000 Republican primary as "the first real glimpse behind the curtain of Bush World" (Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004 ).
He wrote: "What the Bushies used against McCain was an unholy coalition of the two primary wings of the Republican Party—the Corporate Warriors and the Prayer Warriors. These unlikely allies united against McCain despite the fact that he had a strong pro-life record and a conservative congressional record. The alliance of Mammon and the religious right was consummated in opposition to McCain's support for campaign finance reform. The embodiment of this coalition was a key operative who implemented the anti-McCain assault in South Carolina—former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, a Karl Rove crony who was also on the payroll of Enron. Reed had been my boss when I worked as legislative director of the Christian Coalition. Before the primaries, Reed warned me that he would implement an under-the-radar slime assault on McCain if he posed a threat to Bush—just what happened in South Carolina after Bush's loss to McCain in the New Hampshire primary."
More recently, when asked whether he would abandon Lieberman to join McCain if the Republican senator were to run for president, Wittmann told the New York Times: "One thing I've learned in the press world is that I don't answer hypothetical questions."
